关键词: 吃的隐喻, 食物再现, 英使访华记, 晚清出使记

Abstract: Travelers do not merely gaze at a foreign country, they also taste. Both the travels of the first British delegation to China at the end of the 18th century and the reports of Late Qing diplomats to the countries of Europe and the United States in the late 19th century represent Chinese food, Western food and their respective ways of food and hospitalities. Such accounts provide a unique insight into the way of food and cultural differences in the early encounter between the East and the West. The emissaries from the East and the West went towards each other with established knowledge and digestive systems. The physiological and psychological reactions to the first encounter with foreign food, the complex feelings about foreign food and hospitality, the evaluation of the system of food production, distribution, consumption and cultural customs, and the manifestation of unequal international relations at the table, all reflect the cultural and political conservatism, the great cultural differences as well as the irreconcilable conflicts in the early encounter between the East and the West.

Key words: eating as metaphor, representation of food, travel writings of British embassy to China, reports of late Qing diplomats